Monday, September 27, 2010

A bunch of topics that I don't really feel like making separate posts for.

CATACLYSM

CATA TALENTS: the talent tree for resto is still confusing me, with its tendency towards dps talents. The feral tree is nicely straight-forward and I can put a build together without issue, but the resto tree is not nearly so cut-and-dry in terms of talents. I think much of this stems from not knowing exactly what to expect with mana management and spell use, as well as time available for DPS (regardless of free wraths).

CATA GUILD RECRUITENT: I've noticed a lot of people apping specifically to join a guild for the expansion, rather than for current raiding. I have a bit of advice: if you're going to play as a different character for Cataclysm (or are willing to level and play a different character as a main), make sure you SAY that in your application so that the guild can plan around that class and role, rather than your current main. Linking to your current main is only useful in terms of showing off the care you give to your gear, spec, and reputation-grinding.

LIFE

SAWMILL: I went to a sawmill late last week. Live, operational, industrial sawmill. I watched as trees were methodically turned to lumber. The resto druid in me was screaming... but I couldn't hear her over the earplugs necessary to protect my ears from the screech of metal on wood. I did have a philosophic moment as I watched a tree be quickly decimated into boards, scrap, and sawdust that this was much like what Blizzard was doing with current resto druids: cutting it down, slicing it apart, making it something that looks visually nothing like the treeform it once was.

BIRTHDAYS: It was my birthday over the weekend... went to dinner on Saturday with Kitarha to one of those hibachi grill places. The grill table we sat at had not one but two other birthdays, and we heard at least 4 other birthday song-and-cakes go out (not all birthdays buy this special treatment, either). In addition, I shared my own birthday cake on Friday night with 2 other birthdays. It makes me empathize a bit with twins and kids who have their birthdays over the winter holidays. It steals the specialness of your birthday. You're just another one littering the weekend, unremarkable, overdone, "lol what was in the water 9 months ago."

PUPPY: River had her first dog-to-dog socialization over the weekend, and did well. She also met a bunch of "the college kids" whose common exclamation over her was "FLUFFY!" I left the camera at home because I didn't want to risk it getting lost or damaged in the rush of dogs (and wanted my full attention on her rather than taking photos), but I'll try to remember to bring it to her next playdate.

MOVIES

OLD MOVIES: Last Dragon and Gymkata are more bearable than Zardoz. One word: mankini.

NEW MOVIES: Legend of the Guardians was cute and decently done. As a "kid's movie," it couldn't really delve too deeply on topics it skirted around... an adult/teen version would actually do well. As an adaptation from the books, it did well in cutting out a lot of the slow parts that I thought unnecessary, but it took some liberties and shortcuts I was upset with given how short the film itself was. SPOILERS TO FOLLOW:

It took two completely different, rival factions and merged them into one conglomeration (St. Aggies and the Pure Ones were mashed together). While it worked, more or less, it was a surprise and forced several of the plot changes.

It made Kludd out to be nicer than he was supposed to be. He PUSHED SOREN (and later, Eglantine) out of the tree AS A SACRIFICE to the Pure Ones... he didn't fall with him and it wasn't an accident. Kludd was never kidnapped. He also tried to kill Mrs. Plithiver when she refused to stay silent about him pushing his siblings out of the nest. He also WAS Metalbeak. Kludd was evil from the start.

Otulissa was underdeveloped, as was the training at Ga'Hoole which was completely understated; they could easily have added that time to what was a short movie.

What happened to the entire Collier chaw? That whole firestorm thing was something Ezylryb trained Soren and Otulissa to do, among others: they collected coals for the Blacksmiths.

Ummmmmmm wtf was up with the magnetism? It's just MAGNETISM. It's not visible. It attracts metal and messes with the owls' navigation and makes them woozy/disoriented. It's. Not. Visible. In addition, the vampire bats were just around to drain the St. Aggies owls to make them weak and unwilling to try to fly: they were not warriors with their own metal weapons (they also just ignored the whole plot point about metal and magnetism when it came to the movie-bats' weapons).

If I'm remembering right, Soren's parents "vanished" (aka killed). IIRC, it was hinted that they were killed by Kludd himself. They certainly did not magically show up at the Ga'Hoole tree after months of their childrens' disappearance and say "oh we were so worried about you!"

I was disappointed that they didn't include Madame Plonk; I was looking forward to hearing their adaptation of the Taps song she sings at the Ga'Hoole tree, with the harp the nestmaid snakes play. It was, possibly, the part I was looking forward to the most. I think it was also what was supposed to help cure Eglantine's moonblinking.

WTH did they do to Twilight? In the books, he was harsh, he was strong, he was violent, and he certainly did not have a lute. He was a warrior who happened to sing war songs in combat out of ego and as a tactic to confuse and inflame his enemies. At least, that was always my impression of him: a world-hardened young owl, not a showy (and bad) bard.

....echidna? Hello, puffin-replacing movie plot device that makes me /facepalm. The crow mob got nuetered from the true danger it was supposed to be, and they certainly didn't know any nuerotic echidna-sages.

Approaching it as an outsider, I actually really like the Resto Druid tree when I look at it (and not just for Replenishment, although that certainly is a massive boon). A lot of the spells seem to have quite a bit of synergy with one another (which is reinforced by the mastery) and there are some rather unique secondary effects on some spells (Living Seed and Efflorescence).

The main issue I'm finding with it though is that you get to 2/0/34 and then have 5 points left that you need to spend on specifically DPS talents (not even utility talents). Genesis and Nature's Grace should really be switched in Balance.

Overall though, it actually looks pretty good. Combined with the lack of the ugly tree form, I think it might actually be pretty fun to play around with a Resto Druid alt in Cata since it's the only healing-capable class I've never been able to get very high. I just wish they'd get rid of the silly boomkin graphic (or make it optional or a proc like the tree) because Balance looks pretty fun now too but I can't stand the animations of that ugly bird.

I agree about swapping NG and Genesis. The rest of the resto tree, though, is too cluttered. It has the most talents out of all 3 druid trees (balance has the fewest), yet still finds the necessity to put talents in other trees. The feral tree is one talent less, but it's got two completely different roles you can specialize for!

I started a draft post stating my concerns about the talents; maybe I should actually publish it :)